


Waking

by Synesthetic



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Consent Issues, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Someone Help Will Graham, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:53:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synesthetic/pseuds/Synesthetic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will figures it out and it breaks him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking

**Author's Note:**

> Set fairly early in season one. Not beta read.

The silence that falls behind Hannibal is as sudden and final as the sound of a slamming door. 

Will is standing by Hannibal’s desk, looking down, hand outstretched. His fingertips are resting on a neat stack of papers that Hannibal knows is nothing more than some figure sketches he’d been working on, nothing worthy of Will Graham’s focused interest. Beside them lay a handful of pencils and the scalpel that he had used to sharpen them, and it is the latter that seems to be holding Will’s attention. His grey eyes are unfocused and half-closed, his face blank. 

Hannibal feels a sharp twinge of … something, but he’s moving before he has time to think about it. His hand slides down along the side of his chair and wraps around the frame and further until his fingers are wrapping around a smooth length of plastic, the handle of a blade he had hidden there for unforeseen circumstances. Hannibal likes to be prepared. This situation is not yet an emergency, but Hannibal expects it will be momentarily.

Will doesn’t move.

Hannibal rises from his chair quietly, the hand with the blade hanging down by his side as he circles around towards Will. He approaches from Will’s right side, his dominant hand. Will would be forced to turn to bring Hannibal into his sights when he draws his gun, and Hannibal would be perfectly positioned, slightly behind and to the side, to bring up the blade. There is the slightest hesitation in Hannibal’s smooth steps as he moves into position. He would bring the blade up into Will’s belly, use his considerable strength to push in and upwards, his own body slightly to the side to avoid as much of the inevitable mess of blood and escaping viscera as possible. Hannibal brings his body into alignment with Will’s own and tells himself that the faint sensation tickling at the base of his skull is just disappointment from the unexpected and far too rushed end of his game with Will Graham.

Will is still staring at the scalpel on the desk, doesn’t show by so much as a flinch or a shift that he’s aware that Hannibal has moved and is now standing beside him. Hannibal waits, and waits some more and when Will remains frozen he risks speaking. 

“Will? Is there something the matter?” Hannibal keeps his voice as gentle as possible, warm and concerned even as he tenses the arm holding the knife. Will is so still Hannibal isn’t even sure if he’s blinking. His eyes drop to Will’s chest and he counts his breaths - twenty-four breaths per minute – a little fast but not panicked. He drops the hand holding the knife drop back a little further by his side, suddenly less sure of the reason for Will’s blank state. It is so quiet in the room Hannibal can hear the faint ticking of the watch on his own wrist. A minute ticks by a second at a time, then another, then another.

Will still doesn’t move, so Hannibal doesn’t move. Hannibal spares a second to imagine them with his artist’s eye: two men, standing near enough to touch, one with a knife hidden against the length of his leg and leaning towards the other with his brow knit in thought. It would be a fine study in marble, he thinks, and then changes his mind. It would have to be a painting, oil paints perhaps, in hues rich enough to capture the stormy grey-blue of Will’s eyes, and the bruised shadows beneath them.

Time passes.

Will doesn’t reach for his gun or his cell phone. He doesn’t turn to look at Hannibal who has never been so close to Will for so long. Hannibal shifts slightly so he can see Will’s face and stares at the gleam of blue beneath Will’s lids. He watches long enough that he finally sees one quick, spastic blink before Will resumes his fixed stare. He counts Will’s breaths, which remain even and steady. Eventually Hannibal reaches out and touches Will on the shoulder. There is no response and slowly Hannibal relaxes his arm and shifts around until he can see Will’s face more fully. Will doesn’t react to Hannibal moving, his eyes still fixed on the scalpel. Will’s mouth is slightly open, his entire face so slack that Hannibal would think he was sleepwalking if he hadn’t seen him walk into the office just minutes earlier, alert and talking. 

Hannibal finds himself in a rare state - uncertain of what to do next. He had been so sure that Will had unexpectedly made the right connections and glimpsed Hannibal’s true nature but now he isn’t so sure. He had only heard a few rough details of Will’s latest case but he didn’t remember any mention of a connection to surgery or to surgically-removed trophies that might explain Will’s fixation on the scalpel. Will’s encephalitis might be causing a seizure but if Will’s state is a seizure, it is a highly atypical one. 

Hannibal takes a step away from Will, and then another when Will still doesn’t react. He waits for another long, frozen moment, muscles coiled to react if need be, but Will remains frozen. Hannibal slips his knife into his pocket so it remains in easy reach, and then he strides briskly across the room. He locks his office doors and pulls the shades, closing up as he would at the end of any usual day but keeping a wary eye on Will Graham as he does so. He searches Will efficiently, takes his cell phone and turns it off. He takes Will’s car keys and gun and locks them in the briefcase he occasionally uses to bring work files home. He calls his answering service and signs out for the evening. He stands next to Will as he does so, close enough he could reach out a hand and touch him, and watches the regular rise and fall of Will’s chest. He opens a locked box in his desk drawer and draws out a fresh syringe and his hand hesitates over a half-dozen vials before settling for a sedative. He draws up a dose sufficient to tranquilize a man Will’s size, and the caps the syringe and slips it into his pocket with the knife. He replaces the locked box in his desk drawer.

After he hangs up the phone he places his own car keys in his pocket and moves closer to Will who doesn’t react, even when Hannibal is close enough that his chest brushes against Will’s arm. Hannibal pushes Will who moves with the force of his hand but stiffly, awkwardly, as if Hannibal is pushing at a wax statue of Will Graham rather than a living body. He reaches out again and lifts Will’s arm, the one stretched out towards the scalpel on his desk. The arm moves when Hannibal pulls as it, smoothly, but reluctantly like trying to reform clay that had already started to dry. He shifts around until he is behind Will and then wraps his arms around Will and lifts him. Will is surprisingly light for a grown man, Hannibal thinks. He is too thin. Hannibal can feel the edge of his ribs pressing against the tops of his arms. He feels strangely familiar to Hannibal, and he can feel his mouth twist as it registers. The stiff unforgiving angles of Will’s body, awkwardly frozen in Hannibal’s arms, the absence of expected weight, as if he were hollow, as if someone had emptied him of his organs...this is what Will would feel like if he were one of Hannibal’s victims. 

Hannibal is surprised at how unpalatable the thought is to him. Will Graham is no pig fit only for slaughter. He is fragile, true, and far too easily manipulated - by Hannibal, by Jack Crawford, by Alana, but his gift makes him something more, sets him apart from the herd, makes him interesting. Hannibal cannot remember the last time he played a game as engaging as the one he was now playing with Will Graham. It added an element of excitement, intrigue, of genuine enjoyment that had been missing from his life for far too long. 

There is an attached garage, both at his office and at his home. He hesitates but ultimately half pushes and half carries Will to his car and folds his body down into the back seat of his Bentley. He is far too tall to fit comfortably. Hannibal turns him to his side, with his legs folded awkwardly but Will doesn’t complain. Indeed, he doesn’t even seem to notice the change in location, still staring forward with that same steady gaze. Hannibal straightens and feels dissatisfied but it wouldn’t do for Will to wake up in the trunk of the car, if this fugue state were unrelated to Hannibal. 

It’s a short drive between his office and his home. Hannibal drives carefully, always aware of the figure rocking gently with the movement of the car, but otherwise still. He remains tense, ready to react if Will rouses, a dozen different plans for how to quickly and subtly subdue him at the ready. He’s relieved when the garage door rolls shut behind them. 

He drags Will out of the car and into his house and lays him on the couch, then thinks better of it and carries him up the stairs into the guest bedroom. Even with his carefully trained strength it takes real exertion for him to carry Will up to the second floor and he finds himself breathing heavily into the curls at the back of Will’s head. The scent of Will’s illness rises off him like a humid wave and he turns slightly away. There’s a hint of another scent, faint, almost lost to the stink of fever that Hannibal suspect’s is Will’s natural scent. Hannibal frowns slightly at how faint it is. At Will’s house it is lost beneath the combined scents of Will’s dogs and the surrounding forest. Hannibal tilts his head slightly and tries to separate the scents. Will’s natural scent is strongest at the nape of his neck and behind his ears and Hannibal breathes Will in. It is more appealing than Hannibal would have expected, and even this close to Will, his nose just brushing the nape of his neck, it is elusive. He loses the trace of it when they cross the threshold of the guestroom.  
He lays Will onto the neatly made bed and takes off Will’s shoes. Hannibal straightens Will’s arms and legs until he is lying on his back, head resting on a pillow. He would look like he was sleeping if his eyes weren’t still open. He moves an armchair from the corner and sets it down at the edge of the bed, near enough he could reach out and touch Will and he sits down.

Hannibal rarely finds himself at a loss for what to do. It is possible that this is a result of Will’s illness, a seizure or some kind of atypical delirium but it seems too coincidental that it had started while Will was in Hannibal’s office, while he was looking at the scalpel. Hannibal does not believe in coincidences, or at least, he does not rely on them. He knows things would be simpler if he kills Will now, before he emerges from whatever fugue state has seized him. Even if Will had told someone of his visit, which seemed unlikely, Hannibal never writes down Will’s informal appointments in his schedule book. It would be a simple matter to carry Will into the guest bathroom and cut his throat while he lay in the tub. He would bleed out in minutes and Hannibal’s safety would be assured. 

Hannibal can feel his mouth flatten in dissatisfaction at the idea. In all the ways he’s imagined his game with Will Graham ending, he’d never visualized quite such a mundane end. He’d imagined something grand, an event, an eloquent unveiling, some well-scripted passion play authored by Will Graham but with Hannibal’s unseen hand guiding Will’s on the pen. He wanted Will’s reactions, all his delicious fear and rage and triumph, wanted to engage Will in a duet of intellect with both their minds pitted against one another and twined together, working together with himself as the focus. He wanted Will Graham’s undivided attention, his passion, his complete soul-deep understanding of what and who Hannibal truly is. 

He forces himself to picture killing Will now, while he lay silent and still, can see the beautiful bloom of blood flash against the pale backdrop of his bathtub and pulsing away with each beat of Will’s heart until it slows and stops. Hannibal stares at the stormy blue of Will’s unseeing gaze and imagines his eyes clouding over, sinking back into his skull as decay set in. Will still and silent forever and his magnificent gifted mind just gone, like that, with one swipe of a blade and Hannibal left behind to...to what? His routine. Going to work, seeing patients, his amusements, music, and reading, and his art. His beautiful, unappreciated art. Back to being chased by men like Jack Crawford who only saw the grossest outlines of what Hannibal created without any hope of truly understanding it, of understanding him. For a moment he feels the faintest twinge of something that he doesn’t have a name for, something that belonged to his past. Regret perhaps, he thinks with some surprise, maybe longing. He will never again have an audience like Will Graham.

The idea of eating Will doesn’t feel right. The idea of butchering Will Graham, his heart perhaps, a few choice cuts from his thighs actually makes a sour wash of saliva fill the back of his throat. Will is a lot of things but he isn’t a pig. Hannibal shifts in his seat, a rare lapse in his self-control and releases the arms of the chair when he realizes just how hard he is gripping them. Will was never meant to be just a meal but the thought of just discarding his body is even worse. Hannibal imagines wrapping him in a shroud, something beautiful, something worthy to cradle Will’s body and taking him somewhere, maybe into the woods he so loved, and burying him. Hannibal grimaces. Even that didn’t feel right. It isn’t enough, it diminished his death. Will isn’t meant to be some sad little victim buried uncelebrated and unremembered in a hole in the woods. 

Hannibal knows that Will must have figured out the truth. Nothing else feels right but maybe he is jumping to hasty conclusions, he tells himself. Maybe this is as simple as Will’s infection. It would be a shame, Hannibal thinks, if he killed Will Graham prematurely, based on a mistaken assumption. 

He would wait, he decides. His house is secure, every window and door locked, the cell phones hidden, and his home line forwarded to his answering service. He will allow Will to waken and talk to him, watch for Will to give himself away. He sits back in the chair, and waits.

 

“Hannibal?”

Hannibal looks up from his book to see Will sitting up, staring at him in obvious confusion. Night had fallen and the only light in the room comes from the small lamp on the bedside table. Hannibal tenses and sets down the book he’d been reading.

“Hannibal! What are you doing here? Am I awake?”

“Hello, Will.” Hannibal waits for Will to orient himself, for the memories of the past hour to return and gives a grim smile as Will’s face suddenly twists in fear. His hand drifts down towards his pocket.

“Oh no. oh no no no no no. Oh god Hannibal.” Will’s voice is shaking but instead of staring at Hannibal as he speaks, he is looking around, as if looking for something, someone else. He swings his legs off the bed and rushes to Hannibal even as Hannibal rises to meet him. Hannibal tenses, expecting a punch, a fight, anything other than Will Graham’s hands urgently clutching his shirt. “We have to go, we have to go right now.” 

“Go where Will?” Hannibal asks but Will didn’t seem to hear him, never ceasing his frantic search around the room as if waiting for an imminent attack. Hannibal slides his hand off the blade and onto Will’s arm. 

“Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.” Will drags Hannibal to the open door to the hallway and recoils at the dark empty hallway, turning and pushing Hannibal back into the guest room. Will looks around frantically and pushes Hannibal towards the closet door, fumbling at the door knob with shaking hands. The guest room closet is sizeable, empty except for a spare blanket neatly folded on the shelf and a handful of wooden hangers. Will pushes Hannibal into the closet, grabs the blanket off the shelf and shuts the closet door behind them both. He pulls open the blanket with frantic hands and throws it over Hannibal, pushing him down until he is awkwardly seated on the floor with the blanket draped over his lap. Will crouches down in front of him, pressing back against him and holding his hands up as if to ward off a blow.

“I can’t let him get you. I can’t let him get you. I can’t...” The words are fast, stumbling in a slurred rush over Will’s desperate gulps for breath. 

“Will.” Hannibal says.

Will turns awkwardly, half falling into Hannibal and pressing his empty hand over Hannibal’s mouth. “Shhhhh....”

In the dark of the closet Hannibal can only see the faint moist gleam of Will’s eyes, and only because Will is crowded up next to him. Will’s body is a series of awkward knobs and heat along his side and his face is so close to Hannibal’s that his mouth is crammed up against the other side of the hand Will is holding over his mouth. His voice, when he spoke is a hot puff of moisture curling up over the edges of his palm.

“You have to be quiet. I can’t let him find you. I have to save you. I have to protect you. Please Hannibal, please let me protect you.” Will’s words crowd out of his mouth in a rushed mutter, so urgent, so terrified that Hannibal feels the faint prickle of unease raise the hairs on the back of his neck. He tries to open his mouth, to speak but that only makes Will’s already frantic gasping breaths hitch, and he pushes himself even closer against Hannibal. His palm is wet against Hannibal’s lips. Hannibal’s lips burn from the salt in Will’s sweat.

“No no no no shhhhh please Hannibal shhh don’t don’t he’ll hear he’ll find you please don’t don’t oh god please Hannibal don’t.”

Will’s voice starts to break and Hannibal hears the hitch in his breathing even as the sharp smell of tears fills the air. Will’s hand slides away from Hannibal’s mouth, smearing down his skin to his neck and then tentatively up around his shoulder. Will’s other hand creeps upwards until he his arms are wrapped around Hannibal’s shoulders in a loose embrace. The rest of Will’s body is rigid, as if he is waiting for a signal to jump away. Hannibal doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, and after a long moment Will sighs and folds his body down into Hannibal until his forehead is resting on his shoulder. 

Hannibal keeps his breathing slow and even, forces his body to stay relaxed in Will’s tentative embrace even as he feels seized with a terrible consuming tension. He doesn’t understand what is happening. This is no seizure and Will is far too active and alert to be sleepwalking.

“Have to keep you safe.” Will mumbles. “Keep you safe.” His mumbling slows and he starts to sag against Hannibal. Hannibal waits but Will is still, breathing warm damp puffs of breath against Hannibal’s shoulder. 

“Why Will? Why do you have to keep me safe?” Hannibal asks.

Will’s arms spring away from Hannibal and he reels back so sharply he falls against the solid wood of the closet door with a heavy thud. Hannibal can make out the movement of Will’s head turning back and forth, before focusing back on him. 

“Dr. Lector? What are you doing here? Am I awake?”

“Will...”

“What are you doing? What is this place?” Will’s voice is high pitched, his breathing noisy. Hannibal holds himself still even as Will presses himself back against the door so hard it creaked on its hinges.

“We are in my guest bedroom closet. You had some kind of episode, some kind of delusion that we were in danger. Do you remember?”

Hannibal isn’t sure if Will can hear him. His breathing has accelerated until he is panting, each short sharp inhalation a gasp and each breath out a strangled stuttering cough. The closet door snaps open under the pressure of Will’s frantic writhing but he barely seems to notice as he spills out onto the floor of the guest room. Will’s hands have flown up to wrap around his throat and his face is bright red as his agonized breathing continues.

Hannibal crawls out of the closet and hovers over Will.

“Will, stop. You are hyperventilating. Try to slow your breathing. Will.”

It is too late. Even as he reaches out towards Will, Will’s watering eyes roll back and his breathing abruptly slows as he passes out. His hands slide down from where they’d been clutching at his throat and his whole body goes lax against the floor. Hannibal reaches out and feels for a pulse, which is bounding at Will’s neck. He pulls Will from the floor and lifts him back onto the bed. He sits on the bed next to Will and reaches out to check his pulse again. His hand lingers against the reassuring throb at the side of Will’s neck as he considers Will’s behavior. Will is definitely not having seizures, not with his level of activity and his ability to speak. No mention of the scalpel, no memory of where he is or his circumstances when he awoke, his belief that he needed to protect Hannibal. Hannibal frowns.

His thoughts are interrupted by Will’s faint moan. He draws his hand back from Wills’s neck and watches as Will reaches up and rubs his chest. He opens his eyes and looks around. His eyes seem to catch on the soft light of the lamp, the open closet door. Finally, his eyes land on Hannibal and Will frowns slightly.

“Am I awake?” he asks?

“Yes Will, you are awake. Do you remember what happened?”

Will looks around the room again and his hands slide across the smooth cotton of the coverlet and he looks down at himself, at Hannibal sitting on the edge of the bed, before he turns his gaze back to Hannibal.

The expression that crosses Will’s face is unlike any Hannibal has ever seen on his face before. His entire face softens and a gentle smile curves his lips. Hannibal feels ...astonished. Until that moment he had not realized that he has never seen Will Graham happy. Not even the fact his cheeks are still wet with tears takes away from the joy in his eyes. 

“You can’t fool me.” Will’s voice is soft, playful in a way Hannibal has never heard it before.

Will’s gaze shifts until suddenly Hannibal is staring directly into his eyes. Will reaches up to touch the curve of Hannibal’s cheek. Hannibal is not sure which gesture startles him more, although he suppresses any outward reaction.

“I’ve had this dream before.”

Hannibal freezes as he feels Will’s touch, so light, so tentative even here in what he believes is his own dream, skim down the side of his face. Will’s smile only gets warmer as Hannibal doesn’t pull away and he brings his other hand up to lay it against the side of Hannibal’s neck. Hannibal tenses at the touch, but all Will does is to leave his hand there, warm and heavy.

“You’re so beautiful. Sometime when we’re talking and you smile I think about how much I’d like to kiss you.”

Hannibal knows. He has seen looks like that before, from men, from women, greedy, adoring, lustful. He’s caught the stutter of Will’s eyes fluttering over him, seen the faintest clumsy pause as they lingered on his lips, his shoulders, his hands. He remembers feeling...satisfied, but nothing more. But here, in this bed, in his own house with Will warm against his hip, the memory of those fleeting glances sends a slither of heat down his spine. Staring at Will Graham suddenly feels terribly familiar, something he’d done more than he realized, something besides watching for his reactions, his exquisite suffering as he struggled through Hannibal’s game. The dark sweep of his lashes against his cheeks, the graceful curve of his lip, the sharp line of his jaw...Hannibal has seen all of these, but never like this. Never so close.

The warm smile recedes from Will’s face, and his gaze falls away. Hannibal feels the loss but bites back a protest. Will’s eyelids slip shut for just a moment and when they open again Will’s eyes are sheened in unfallen tears. 

“But I never would.”

Hannibal’s brow furrow at the forlorn tone of Will’s voice, the tears that have suddenly appeared in his eyes. He watches Will’s eyes skip down to his mouth then away, and then back again. 

“Why not Will?”

Will ignores Hannibal’s question and brings his other hand up to cradle Hannibals’ face fully between his palms. He pulls Hannibal forward, just a little. His eyes catch on Hannibal’s mouth. 

“But you’ll kiss me here, won’t you Hannibal? In my dream?”

“Are you asleep Will?” Hannibal asks.

“Hurry, Hannibal. Kiss me before I wake up.” Will eyes close and he stretches up, mouth soft and slightly parted. Hannibal stares down at him, frozen at the thought that as beautiful as Will looks suffering, he is beautiful in a way Hannibal never imaging, lying beneath Hannibal and waiting for his kiss.

Hannibal freezes for a long moment, long enough that Will’s hands curl and start drifting away. Hannibal hears a hitch in Will’s breathing, as if he has fallen asleep. His mouth goes slack and he murmurs Hannibal’s name even as another tear rolls out from under Will’s closed eyes. Hannibal’s breath catches as an unexpected sensation of loss, of missed chances rolls over him. 

Will opens his eyes.

There is no recognition in them and even as Hannibal watches they go wide, and Will begins to scream. The sound is familiar to him, the night music he’d played himself on many instruments, the shrill terror of a human animal facing death. He’d never imagined these sounds from Will. He feels none of the warm, buzzing pleasure he usually feels when he is immersed in such sounds. He presses a palm over Will’s open mouth and presses even harder when Will’s hands fly up to claw at his hand with desperate, clumsy fingers. Hannibal uses his position to press Will down, to hold his flailing body pinned against the mattress. Will isn’t fighting with any skill, any thought, any of his training, just the desperate mindless movements of an animal caught in a trap.

Will’s body convulses under his, the warm pliancy of a moment before gone as if Hannibal had just imagined it. Hannibal shifts when he smells the acrid stench of urine as Will loses control of his body. The screams seem to get louder despite his muffling hand, louder and louder with barely a gasp for breath between each wild, terrified shriek. Will’s body arches up in one last hard curved arch, then goes so lax that for a moment Hannibal thinks that Will has died. He draws his hand back and Will’s head lolls to the side. There’s a long frozen moment before Will’s chest heaves in a breath and Hannibal draws back when he realizes that Will has passed out again.

He lifts himself slowly off of Will’s body, wrinkling his nose at the smell of fresh urine. He glances down and frowns at the spots that have transferred themselves from the front of Will’s pants to his own. He takes a step away from the bed then pauses to look down at Will. His face is still flushed, beads of sweat circling his hairline like a crown, and there are matching tears spangled in Will’s lashes. His breathing is slow and even, his limbs flaccid. Hannibal takes another small step away and when it draws no response from Will he hurries from the guestroom and down the hall to his own bedroom. He retrieves a pair of fresh pants, and, after a moment’s hesitation, a pair of loose cotton pajamas for Will. He grabs a stack of washcloths from the linen closet as he walks back to the guestroom. Will is still unconscious. Hannibal changes his own pants and then he divests Will of his, and the sodden boxers beneath. He rolls Will to the side to remove the coverlet from beneath him, leaving him on the clean sheet beneath and wraps the soaked clothing into the coverlet, then drops the whole bundle into the bathtub. He runs the water in the guest bathroom sink to moisten the washcloths. He is wiping Will clean when he realizes that Will is awake again and watching him.

Will is staring at Hannibal, then back down at himself, at his naked lower body which all the more startling against the dark blue sheet of the bed. There is an expression on his face Hannibal can’t quite place, a curious blend of perplexity and disappointment. Will reaches out and lays one hand on top of Hannibal’s. 

“Hannibal? Am I awake? What...” Will’s voice stops and his eyes get huge and Hannibal shifts, preparing himself to muffle Will’s shrieks again, but Will’s eyes only open, wider and wider until they’re suddenly sheened with tears. “Hannibal,” he says again, softly, in a tiny voice, and then Will Graham is crying. Hannibal pulls back and Will curls onto his side, uncaring of his nudity. He hides his face in his hands and cries and cries until his breathing sounds loose and wet and his breath is hitching between gasped breaths. Even as he is struggling to breathe the soft sounds of his weeping never stop, his hands never move from where they are covering his eyes. Hannibal has never seen someone cry like this, even in all his years of psychiatric practice. He has seen grief and sorrow and despair to the point of death but nothing as profoundly broken as Will Graham sounds right now. He is struck by a sudden need to acknowledge that he himself is almost certainly the cause of Will’s weeping. He is at a loss for a moment. He has feigned sympathy but never has he genuinely tried to provide comfort and at last he reaches out a hand and lets it touch Will’s arm. Will stiffens and Hannibal has to stifle the impulse to jerk his hand back before Will can pull away from his touch.

Will does not pull away. He slowly moves, not reaching for Hannibal’s hand so much as shifting until he is curled around it, until Hannibal’s hand is pressing down across his sodden eyes, held their by Will’s own hands. The washcloth drops unnoticed from Hannibal’s free hand to the floor.

The crying continues for longer than Hannibal imagined it could. Will can barely breathe around his hitching sobs, his entire body shuddering with each stuttering breath. Hannibal’s hand is drenched. He can feel Will’s tears collect in drop by drop in the palm of his hand until it overflows and runs down his fingers. He sits next to Will on the bed and tries to remember the last time anyone’s tears held the least bit of meaning for him.

It takes a long time for Hannibal to notice that Will has drifted off to sleep. His body still shakes with his hitched breath. He gently pulls his hand out of Will’s slack grasp and dries it off on the sheets. He walks to the dresser where he placed the syringe of sedative and walks back to will. He pinches up a spot on Will’s shoulder and plunges the needle deep into the muscle. Will does not react. Hannibal finishes the injection and caps the needle.

He finishes cleaning Will, first his lower half and then he divests Will of his shirt and wipes his face and neck as well. His face is blotchy and red, his eyes swollen and even as Hannibal watches another tear wells up in the fringe of his lashes and rolls down his face. Will is still crying, he realizes, even in his drugged sleep.

Hannibal dresses Will in a pair of his own pajamas. They are too large for the other man and only make his already thin frame look more fragile. He changes the sheets under Will and soon has him tucked into bed on fresh linens, propped up as if he had taken to bed with an inconvenient cold. Hannibal watches him for a moment. Will looks drugged, not peaceful, a symphony of restless twitches and jerks, faint spastic grunts, and the occasional tear. He looks like a man struggling against unseen torture.

Hannibal thinks about that smile, that fleeting moment of genuine happiness, the only one he had ever seen Will Graham display during the entire time he has known him. It was for him, because of him, he thinks, and then corrects himself. It was not truly Hannibal that had made Will happy, Hannibal thinks, it was a dream of him, some idealized vision Will chases in the safety of his own mind.

Hannibal walks down the stairs into his kitchen and fixes himself a simple meal. He eats alone at his dining room table and thinks about Will Graham. He keeps a wary ear on his guest but there is no indication that Will is throwing off the sedation. 

Will knows. Will knows and it has broken him. Hannibal chews mechanically, taking no enjoyment in the meal in front of him. Will must have somehow made the connection when he had seen the scalpel and the weight of the knowledge of Hannibal’s true self must have broken something inside Will’s mind. The question now, Hannibal wonders, is how deeply had Will broken and what form will the shards take?

He takes his briefcase and after some thought draws up three more syringes, caps them, and slides them into his pocket. He adds a bottle of an anxiolytic which also serves as a milder sedative. He stops in the kitchen to make a tray for Will and walks back upstairs.

Will is still asleep. Hannibal retrieves the bottle from his pocket and tips two small tablets into the small glass of juice on the tray. He stirs until they have dissolved and then carries the glass to the bed. 

“Will?

His voice is groggy and hoarse. “Hannibal? Where am I? Am I awake?”

“You were feeling poorly so I brought you to my house so I could care for you.”

Will pushes himself up into a sitting position but sinks back against the headboard as the dizziness and lethargy he is still feeling from the sedative make themselves known. He raises a hand to his forehead and wipes off the sheen of sweat that has formed there. His hand touches his cheeks but any new tears have already dried.

“Here Will, drink.” Hannibal holds up the small glass of juice. Will grasps it with shaking hands and says nothing when Hannibal wraps his own hands around Will’s to keep them steady. He gulps down the juice and then rubs his palms over his eyes. His pupils are tiny, a side effect from the sedative, and his eyelids are swollen from his crying. 

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand why … am I in your bedroom?”

Will sounds confused, his words stilted and strung together like he’s unsure of the meaning of each word. He turns his head to take in his surroundings but from his blinking and squinting it’s obvious that his vision is compromised.

“You’re sick Will. You came to see me at my office and you passed out. I brought you here. Do you remember?”

“I came to see you at your office, Will parrots, brow furrowed. “I don’t …I came to see you....” His breathing is starting to pick up and Hannibal moves across the room for tray to distract him.

“You must be hungry. I wasn’t sure if you’d be up for much so I brought you some crackers and broth.”

Will takes up a cracker in shaking hand and takes a clumsy bite.

He sits with the cracker in his mouth, not chewing, staring at Hannibal with a faint frown on his face. “I came to see you in your office.” He mumbles around the cracker, not noticing when the soggy morsel of cracker falls out of his mouth. His head is shaking back and forth in slow denial and in his lap his hands are shaking. He is struggling to keep his eyes open. 

“I came to see you.”

“Here Will, open your mouth.”

Hannibal holds up a spoon full of warm, fragrant broth to Will’s lips and waits. There is a long pause and then in slow motion Will opens his mouth. Hannibal tips the spoon and feeds a trickle of warm broth into Will’s mouth. 

The very tip of Will’s tongue comes out to lick away the moisture on his bottom lip. 

“That’s it Will. Drink.”

Will does so, opening and swallowing obediently at Hannibal’s commands even as he lists to the side and his eyes droop closed for longer and longer intervals between spoonfuls of broth.

Hannibal has coaxed most of the mug into Will when he suddenly starts, gags, head coming up and eyes flying open. 

“Hannibal? Where am I? Am I awake?”

Hannibal set down the mug and spoon, and covers one of the hands Will is digging into the covers with one of his own.

“You’re in my house, Will. You had a nightmare.”

Will stares at him, working his lips, his breathing rising into the rapid, desperate gasps that were becoming too familiar to Hannibal.

“Were you feeding me? What were you feeding me?” 

“Just some broth, nothing more.” Hannibal says calmly.

“No....” Will moans, rubbing at his mouth with harsh hands as if he could pull the broth back out of himself. “Get it out. Get it out. Get it out. Get it out.”

Hannibal feels his lips flatten at Will’s rejection of his cooking even as he struggled to keep his face calm. 

Will’s gaze flies up to Hannibal’s face, his eyes wide and frantic. “Oh my god, Hannibal, help me. He’s trying to get into me. You have to help me.” Will can barely get the words out between his frantic gasps and he starts clawing at his belly. Even with his short, well-trimmed nails he is ripping at his skin hard enough to leave raw pink scrapes that well with little spots of blood. “Get him out. Get him out.”

Hannibal grabs Will’s hands and holds them away from his body. “Calm yourself, Will. It is just a little chicken broth, nothing more I promise you.”

Will would be screaming if he could draw enough breath. As it is, his breathing is getting faster and more ragged as he hyperventilates. Hannibal is surprised that Will can manage to do so, given the amount of sedative currently floating through his system. He draws back a little, releasing Will’s hands and waits. Will’s hands fly to his throat and he clutches it as he struggles to catch his breath.

“I can’t...I can’t....Hannibal.” 

Will is frankly gasping now, barely able to form words between enormous gulping breaths.

“You...help…”

Hannibal waits a few minutes more as Will’s eyes finally roll back and he passes out, falling back onto the bed with a dull thump. His breathing starts to calm as soon as he passes out. Hannibal hums to himself as he pulls out one of the syringes, this time an atypical antipsychotic medication that he injects into Will’s hip. He leaves the rest of the syringes on the dresser across from the bed and risks carrying the tray down to the kitchen. He leaves it on the counter before heading back to the guest bedroom. He sits in the chair by the bed and waits.

A groan alerts Hannibal that Will is rousing, and he looks up. Will’s eyes are open and staring at Hannibal. Without conscious thought Hannibal’s hands slide into his pocket and wrap around the handle of the knife he is still carrying there.

“It’s not fair.” Will’s voice is soft, hoarse, almost petulant. He blinks slowly and looks away. 

“Will? Is it you?”

Will’s laughter is familiar, bitter and devoid of humor. This is the Will Graham who walked into his office earlier today. His eyes are still heavy from the cocktail of drugs but there is a spark of alertness to them that was missing earlier. Hannibal feels a sudden urgency to capture Will, connect with him before he flees back into madness. Who knew when, if, this was going to happen again.

“Come back, Will. Don’t do this. You can fight this. Let me help you.”

Will almost smiles at that even as his eyes drift around the room, blinking against the blur induced by the drugs. “I think you’ve helped me quite enough.”

“Will…” Hannibal starts, but Will speaks over him. 

“Why would I come back, Dr. Lector? What do I have left?”

Hannibal speaks impulsively, the words out before he can consider their impact. “You have me.”

Hannibal has to suppress a twitch of surprise when Will’s eyes met his own. His hand tightens around the handle of knife but he is frozen as Will stares at him, into him.

“This has all been a game to you, all of it.” Will’s voice is calm, slow enough that a faint southern twang begins to flavor his words. “You’ve been manipulating me, manipulating Jack, Abigail, everyone and everything. We’ve all been game pieces moving around a board of your design. You work with the FBI because it amuses you, and you enjoy watching Jack Crawford struggling to understand you without any hope of success.”

Hannibal says nothing but inwardly he feels a twinge of affection, of pride for Will, for his magnificent mind as he explains the puzzle from the bare handful of pieces that Hannibal had allowed him to see.

“I’ve just been part of that game and watching me suffer to understand you has …has delighted you because you’re a narcissist. My empathy let me get closer to you than you’ve ever allowed anyone before, and by accepting me as a patient you’ve gotten to wallow in someone who knew every part of you, the doctor, the friend, the confidant, the killer. But now that I’ve connected the pieces, connected all the parts of you into one person and seen your game for what it is…well. Now you’re going to kill me.” Will’s voice is sad, steady, and as sure as if he is saying his own name. “You don’t care about anyone as much as you care about yourself and your own survival.”

It’s true. Hannibal knows this, has always known this, but hearing it said in Will’s resigned voice stings, and he finds himself wanting to protest. He does care about Will Graham, in his own way.

Will is looking at him, straight in the eyes and Hannibal feels uncomfortably exposed as if he were on an autopsy table and Will was peering into his open chest cavity. This is why, he thinks unkindly, Will Graham has no friends. No one wants to feel so naked in front of another person. Will has seen through his masks, all of them, and Hannibal has never felt so judged.

“What gave me away?” he asks finally.

Hannibal’s tacit admission causes Will to sigh, long, and low and deep, and his eyes droop closed against the sheen of fresh tears. He has to clear his throat before he speaks and when he opens his eyes he again stares straight at Hannibal.

“The scalpel. It was nothing and everything. I had a flash of you bent over a pencil sharpening it with the scalpel and imaging how meticulous you must be about cutting through the wood and graphite and how you must have looked when you worked as a surgeon and when I imagined you standing over a patient, drawing that same scalpel through living flesh…I just knew.” 

“And then what Will? What happened then?” Hannibal asks, his voice low and urgent.

Will looks at Hannibal. “You would know better than me, Dr. Lector.”

Hannibal steps closer, startled to realize that he’d been drifting towards the bed without his conscious thought. He sits in the chair he left by the side of the bed, right on the edge of his seat, ready to leap up if Will makes a move. “I know what I saw your body do but I want to know what happened in your mind, with your empathy.”

“Are you asking out of professional curiosity Dr. Lector or you just looking for details to jerk off to when I’m dead?”

The vulgarity jerks Hannibal out of the moment. He feels a flash of rage and his body snaps upright. His fingers clamp around the knife in his pocket and he watches Will’s gaze drop toward his side, towards the pocket that contains his hand and the knife, and then away. Hannibal stiffens, suddenly feeling…awkward, in a way he rarely is. He feels like he was just caught in a faux pax and he’s not sure why. He forces his body to relax and considers his next words carefully. 

“No matter what else I may be I am also a psychiatrist. I do find the human mind and psyche worthy of study and of all the minds I have encountered I have always found yours to be the most fascinating. It is utterly unique, in my experience and I have been interested in your thoughts for as long as I’ve known you. I ask, because I know that I will likely never have an opportunity like this ever again. So Will, I ask again, what was it like when you realized?”

Will stares at Hannibal for a moment, at his grave face and then looks down at his own hands which lay limply in his lap. “It was like looking into a dark place and having a firework go off an inch in front of my face. It was terrifying and shocking and more painful than I could have ever imagined. It was like every moment I’d ever spent with you when you were playing at being …Will hesitates over his words, “Dr. Lector, concerned citizen, helpful advisor to the FBI…my friend… was laid over every bloody corpse you’d ever left behind. I could see…”

Will’s voice stutters, pauses, then continues in a far softer tone, “I could see your face as you worked over the bodies. Suddenly the faceless killer I saw as a shadow when I walked through those crime scene was gone and ever scene attributed to the Chesapeake Ripper ran through my head all at once but with you – your face, your hands creating every monstrous vision.” Will’s voice chokes, pauses, then continues. I could see the peace…no, not peace, that’s not the right word. I could see the sense of pleasure and contentment that you feel when you’re butchering your victims. It feels right to you. You don’t kill in a frenzy. It’s not sexual. It’s you…correcting something and doing it in a way that you think of as beautiful. It’s very intimate for you, a way to connect, but not with the victims.”

Will stops then looks up at Hannibal. “Tell me Hannibal, tell me how you choose your victims. I can’t quite see that part of it. I know you think they deserved what you do to them, that all of your victims did something that that, I don’t know, not upsets you, it’s nothing that emotional but something that,” and here Will gropes for the correct words, “something that offends you, but I can’t see what that is.”

Hannibal sits back. His heart is pounding so hard he gives in to the urge to lift his free hand and press his palm against it. The hard steady throb under his hand is heady. He will likely never again be so close to being completely known by another person. 

“I eat the rude.”

Will doesn’t laugh. He nods and stares steadily at Hannibal. “So you’ll never run out of victims.”

Hannibal smiles sharply.

“Exactly so.”

There is a long moment of silence between them. Will’s face is closed off, his eyes skittering behind his slumberous eyes as if he were trapped in a dream. Hannibal slowly feels the glow of exultation fade and he winds it carefully into a thread of memory. He wants to capture this feeling, relive it even though he knows it will never have the same exquisite intensity of the original experience. He pictures a cocoon and wraps the thread into a chrysalis on a twig and then slides it into a glass jar which he leaves on a shelf in his mind palace. He cannot remember the last gift he’d been given by another human being that he’d found worthy of saving but this fragment of Will Graham he knows he will keep for as long as he lives.

It is Will who breaks the silence.

“May I ask for a favor? It will cost you nothing and it will fit in with this pretense of friendship you have so carefully crafted.”

“It was…is…a genuine friendship, Will.” Hannibal says, “As real as any I’ve ever had.” Hannibal is feeling satiated, and generous. His statement makes Will’s eyes fly back to Hannibal’s and they meet for a moment. The pained furrow between Will’s brows relaxes slightly.

“Can you please find someone to look after my dogs? I don’t want them to starve or be killed when I don’t come back.”

“You seem very sure that you are going to be killed.” Hannibal says.

Will mouth twists into something that looks almost like a smile. “I know the Chesapeake Ripper better than anyone alive. Maybe better than he knows himself.” Will’s gaze feels like a physical weight. “There’s no way you can let me live. There’s nothing I could ever say or do that would convince you to let me go. I’m a threat to you, and you find that intolerable. You value control too much and you are incapable of the level of trust it would take to let me go even if I were to swear to you I’d say nothing.”

“And would you Will? Say nothing?” Will is right of course, but Hannibal wonders if Will will even try to save his own life.

Will is quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. My gut says I should be on the phone to Jack Crawford the very second I can get my hands on a phone. But…” There is a long pause and an ugly smirk twists Will’s face. “I think I’ve pretty conclusively proven my gut can’t be trusted.” He lifts his hands and presses down over his belly, wincing a little as he presses on the scratches that he himself made earlier. “But part of me…” he trails off.

He turns to stare at the far wall. “I don’t know.”

Hannibal feels another warm surge of affection. He’d suspected how loyal Will Graham could be, once his affections were engaged. Even now, even knowing the truth Will hesitates at the thought of betraying a friend.

“Only your dogs? There’s nothing else you want from me?” Hannibal wishes he were surprised that Will Graham values the lives of his pets above his own. The silence that follows his words is protracted, and Hannibal can see Will tense, his shoulders hunching up towards his ears and both of his hands fall to clutch at the edge of the comforter.

When he speaks, Will sounds exhausted. “You’ll do what you want, Hannibal, as you always have. Would you listen if I ask you not to eat me? To bury my body instead of displaying it so I don’t turn into a series of crime scene photographs for FBI students to study?” Will’s eyes close and he shudders with the sudden image, his students, sitting in the same classroom where he once lectured, looking at his labelled remains and murmuring at his gruesome demise. Class after class of FBI students, keeping his name alive as a cautionary tale illustrated with photos of his own butchered carcass. 

“At least...” and here Will’s voice breaks, and he reaches up to touch his own throat with both hands, wrapping both hands around his neck and squeezing briefly, as if he has seen one possible end, and is testing to see how it feels. His eyes close for a fleeting moment then his hands drop and he looks back at Hannibal. His eyes are swimming again and even as Hannibal watches they spill over and roll down his face. “At least I’m going to die in the company of my good friend. It’s more than I thought I would have, at the end. I guess the jokes on me that my friend and my killer are the same person.”

Will swallows convulsively. “If…if you can…please don’t let my body be found. Just let me…let whatever is left…let it vanish. I don’t want to be just another victim in your file.”

Will moves faster than Hannibal expected. He lunges forward, not even trying to rise, straight into Hannibal. The chair he is sitting in goes over and with the weight of Will on his chest his head slams against the floor. He reaches up on instinct but only succeeds in grabbing the tangle of blankets and sheets Will had dragged behind him. Will stumbles and a hard knee slams into his shoulder, a foot into his side. There is another impact as Will pushes himself off Hannibal and then he is gone.

Hannibal ignores the pain, the dizziness from his sudden fall and gives chase. His heart is pounding, his pupils dilated, all his senses on edge as he bursts into motion. He is on his feet and flying down the stairs in a bounding leap when he realizes that Will has fled into his kitchen rather than out the front door. He barely spares the time to note that fact before running towards the kitchen, only to be brought up sharply at the sight that meets him inside.

Will is standing in his kitchen, holding one of Hannibal’s boning knives against his own throat. His hands are steady even as the rest of him is not. His red-rimmed eyes are wide, his dark hair wet and matted into sloppy waves and curls. His entire body is shivering around the fulcrum of his neck, and the knife, and his clenched hands.

“I knew you’d lock it. I knew there was no way to escape. You’re too careful, too fast, too strong. This was it. This was my only hope.” 

“Give me the knife Will.” Hannibal takes a careful step towards Will, then another when he doesn’t step back.

Will smiles like Hannibal has said something funny but there is no humor in his fevered eyes. He presses the knife harder against his throat. He presses hard enough that a line of blood wells up, runs along the blade and starts to draw a line down his arm in brilliant crimson red. Hannibal stops.

“But this is perfect, Hannibal. I was delusional. I broke in to your home, I was wild, out of control. You tried to stop me but I was too fast. You tried to hold pressure but the cut was too deep. You called for an ambulance but it was too late. I bled out on your kitchen floor. Just another crazy patient.”

Wills face twists into an ugly mask, a silent sob without the relief of tears. “I don’t want you to kill me.”

“Will...” Here, Hannibal thinks, here is the pleading he’d expected but Will interrupts, speaking over Hannibal as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “If you kill me I’ll know it was all a lie. I’ll know for sure. If I do it myself I can still pretend.” Wills hands drift down as he speaks and he doesn’t even seem to notice Hannibal stepping forward, hand darting out and twisting the knife out of his grasp, or the clatter when he tosses it across the room. Will grabs the front of Hannibal’s shirt. “If I do it myself I can pretend that you wouldn’t have, that you wouldn’t have been able to bring yourself to do it, that it wasn’t all entirely a lie. That you actually care for me, even just a little.”

Will’s voice only got louder and faster as Hannibal opened his mouth to reply. “Because it wasn’t all a lie, even if you meant for it to be. It wasn’t. It wasn’t. You were lying and pretending and fucking with my head and killing people and …and you were still the best friend I’ve ever had.” Will leans forward until his forehead is resting against Hannibal’s chest. Hannibal can feel the impact of Will’s tears against his shirt, heavier than he ever imagined drops of salt water could feel, and spreading into spots of damp heat against his skin. “You made me feel...” His voice trails off.

Will shakes in his grief but there are no sobs this time, just his shuddering body and the tears falling like accusations on Hannibal’s skin.

Hannibal stands feeling strangely impotent, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. They start to lift without his conscious thought and slowly they fold around Will. Hannibal doesn’t know what he expects but Will collapses forward, brings his arms around Hannibal until the two men are pressed together in what could only be called an embrace.

Hannibal feels a welling of an emotion that is as unfamiliar as an old childhood friend. He feels sorrow, for Will Graham and in a way he supposes for himself. They are both lonely men, he thinks, and in each other they had found a kind of connection that both had lacked. He lets his chin droop down until it is brushing against the crown of Will’s head, then still further until his lips are pressed into the warm nest of hair. He focuses his attention on the scent of Will, stronger now even though still tainted, and the warm line of him against his front. He tries to think of the last time he had willingly embraced someone, the way he is embracing Will now, and his sense memory reels back the years, so many years, until he is a boy again, standing in a snowy wood with his sister enfolded in his arms. 

He squeezes his eyes shut at the painful throb of that memory. Suddenly he thinks of Will’s face looking up at him, that fleeting glimpse of a possibility that he hadn’t even considered. One hand escapes his control and runs down the curve of Will’s back to the slight curve of his hip. Will doesn’t flinch away. His arms tighten for a moment, but otherwise he doesn’t react. Hannibal presses Will even closer and considers. 

Hannibal doesn’t know how much time has passed when he finally speaks. 

“Will.”

Will Graham’s face has found its way into the curve of Hannibal’s neck. When Hannibal speaks, Will stiffens, then sighs. Hannibal feels Will’s embrace tighten again, for just a moment, and the faint tickling drag of Will’s nose as he inhales Hannibal’s scent. Will lets go, and straightens, letting his arms fall away. His face is calm, grave, his eyes resigned.

“Will.” Hannibal says again. “There is another way.” Hannibal reaches out and takes both of Will’s hands in his. 

“Let me make amends. Let me fix this.”

Will is staring at their joined hands. 

“Will.”

Will looks up at Hannibal, then back down at the solid warm hands wrapped around his own.

His voice is hoarse when he speaks.

“Please.”

 

* ~ * ~ *

Two years later

Will doesn’t speak Italian but it doesn’t matter. Hannibal speaks it masterfully, and he makes all the arrangements, does all the shopping, serves as Will’s interpreter when they go out. Will is trying to learn but he is easily distracted and still has trouble with his memory. Hannibal is endlessly patient and teases Will about his terrible accent. 

Will doesn’t like to think about the time before they came to Italy. It had been a terrible dark time that left him with nightmares that still wake him regularly, even here in this beautiful place. 

Sometimes Will thinks about teaching. Not often, and not for long, but he would have the occasional fleeting though that he’d been good at it, that he’d enjoyed it, but thoughts of teaching lead to other thoughts, other memories that make his vision darken, make his heart pound, and his hands sweat and shake. Will doesn’t think about teaching very often. 

Will is sometimes surprised that he doesn’t miss anyone. He knows he’d known people before Hannibal but it all seemed so distant, so indistinct, as if he’d only dreamed his entire life before Hannibal had swept into it. Even his early days with Hannibal seemed distant, the dinners at Hannibal’s place, walks through the woods, nights out at the opera, meeting Hannibal’s friends, falling in love. He knows he only remembers those things because of Hannibal, who spent hours talking to him while he was sick. He’d been in the hospital for weeks, Hannibal tells him, and then at home with Hannibal and private nurses for months afterwards. 

He has does have vague memories of Hannibal sitting at his bedside in the hospital as he writhed in pain and terror, wracked with terrible visions. He could still close his eyes and feel the steady warmth of Hannibal hands enclosing his own. Hannibal’s voice had been his anchor, warm, ever present, reminding him of who he was, who Hannibal was, telling him stories about their time together as he struggled against the infection and fought through a tangle of hallucinations and nightmares. His physician, an old friend of Hannibal’s who was an expert in complex infections, had warned him then that his recovery from the encephalitis might take years and that his mind might never be exactly as it once was.

He couldn’t remember when they’d decided to leave Baltimore behind and move to Italy but he knows Hannibal had hoped the slower pace of life and warm weather might help Will finish healing. Hannibal had closed his practice and abandoned his usual social life to care for Will himself. Their last months in their house in Baltimore were a blur to Will. He thinks he had friends that had visited at first but soon it was just Will and Hannibal. Will doesn’t know what he did to deserve such devotion.

Sometimes he felt like he’d awoken in their bedroom in this little house outside of Florence and only started to live at that moment. Most days, that made him feel free. Sometimes, after a bad night, it made him feel lost and desperately alone. He’d tried once to express this sense of being cut adrift from his past to Hannibal who’d only looked at him warmly while he spoke and then swept him up into his arms and said it one of the most romantic things Will had ever said to him. Will’s frustration at being misunderstood was burned away in the fervor of Hannibal’s kisses. He hadn’t brought it up again.

Will knew he was getting better. Hannibal had given him exercises to empty his mind when his nightmares tried to come back and he found clearing his mind had become easier the more he practiced. He was still on some medications, even the occasional injection but the sessions of guided meditation that he’d needed so often in the beginning with Hannibal were down to once a week. He had far more good days than bad. Hannibal swore that Will could never be a burden to him, when Will worried about forcing his lover to serve as his doctor. Hannibal chased every pill he gave Will with a kiss.

Will stretches on the couch, laughing a little as he almost displaces Antonio. The mutt gives a grumbling whimper and resettles himself across Will’s lap. His hand drops down to settle between Antonio’s ears and he strokes the sleek fur. He still misses his dogs but it had gotten better since Hannibal brought home Antonio, rescued from the local shelter. He’d been a shivering starved wreck and it had taken Will weeks of work to transform him into the pampered pet now sprawled trustingly across his lap. He wonders sometimes about Winston and the others, about the homes Hannibal had found for them while Will had been so sick but he doesn’t allow himself to worry. He knows he can trust Hannibal.  
Will hears the sounds of Hannibal at the door, letting himself in. He thinks about getting off the couch and pretending he hadn’t been taking a nap in the late morning sun pouring in through the windows, then stays where he is. 

“Hello my darling. Have you been napping?”

Hannibal appears, and as usual Will’s heart gives a little leap. There is a tiny smile curving Hannibal’s lips and he is carrying a string bag with three paper wrapped package inside, and a fat yellow onion. “I’ve found us a lovely piece of venison for dinner.”

Will smiles.

Hannibal comes closer and leans over Will on the couch. Will shivers when Hannibal blocks out the light for a second, then Hannibal’s lips press against his own, warm and familiar and the momentary chill passes. Will reaches up and links his arms around Hannibal’s neck and turns the passing kiss into something more. He hardly notices Antonio quit the couch and tugs Hannibal down onto the sofa.

Hannibal sets the bag on the table at the end of the couch and goes willingly, until he is lying atop Will. Will shifts until he is happy with Hannibal’s position against him and presses his lips against the corner of Hannibal’s beautiful mouth. Hannibal’s aftershave is subtle, masculine. Will reaches down and tangles his fingers with Hannibal’s. He shifts his head to feel the brush of Hannibal’s silky hair against his cheek.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m having the most beautiful dream,” Will says, not sure if he is speaking to Hannibal or to himself.

Hannibal raises his head and stares down at Will, that same slight smile curving his lips. He raises his free hand and cradles Will’s face into the warm broad curve of his palm.  


“Dreams are true while they last,” Hannibal quotes softly, “And do we not live in dreams?”

Will smiles, and stretches up for another kiss.

Later that night, after dinner, after finishing off their wine under the light of the low yellow Italian moon, Hannibal makes love to Will.

Will never closes his eyes, even when Hannibal’s gentle hands start to drip blood, when the shadows behind Hannibal’s laboring back form into immense black wings that blot out the faint light of the stars. 

Will keeps his eyes open and comes, gasping, with Hannibal’s name on his lips.


End file.
